Since watching a TV show celebrating ‘only fools and horses’, I can’t get the theme song out of my head, especially, “no income tax, no V-A-T” – which also echoes the point of another TV show featuring David Jason, “the darling buds of may” (which I never watched BTW) – the dream of living without taxation.
For me, that dream is a nightmare, because it means I don’t matter. It means health doesn’t matter, education doesn’t matter, safety doesn’t matter. I pay taxes because people matter. Not that I enjoy being parted from my money, though.
Sunday’s set of Lectionary readings starts with Wisdom (characterised as female) shouting at the street corners and in the public spaces. I can’t be sure if that’s the intention, but I feel some frustration surfacing in this reading. In these public spaces, the domain largely of men (who decide what happens), this woman’s voice (Wisdom) is straining, shouting, pleading to be heard.